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Hello, I have read posts in this group, and referred to M/S articles, but haven't seen this case. I bought an LG DVD/CD read/write external USB plug/play machine that came with Nero 6 OEM. The PC assigned it "J:" drive. I used it for many months and all was well. I could copy disks from the internal E: CDW/DVD.

Then I bought a flash drive (Sandisk 2 gig) and plugged it into the front USB port. (The other external drive is plugged into the back, where there are several USB ports next to the Ethernet port).

The first time I plugged in the flash drive, it "uninstalled" the J: drive. Couldn't find it in "My Computer". Also tried the install new hardware routine, with and without the installation disk. So I unplugged the flash drive, and put the DVDW/CDW external into the front port, and the PC recognized it as the J: drive and worked ok. Then Nero did an upgrade to version 6, and I made the mistake of taking the free upgrade. Now that upgrade wants me to buy drivers. So I completely uninstalled it, and reinstalled. Then the drive wouldn't work at all and LG sent me a new one : ) with the new software that wants me to pay for drivers. At $30 a pop, I just wanted my old software back. So I managed to get J: working again, although I could never get Nero to format and copy DVDs for TV like it did before the flash drive mess.

Any ideas on how I can get my J: drive recognized? It is getting power, firmly plugged in, have tried both ports. The front port will recognize the K: flash drive, but not J: anymore. When I plug it into the front port (that recognized the flash drive) I get an "Unknown device" message. I opened and closed the drawer with the install disk in it, it flashed the green light as if it were reading the disk, but the USB root hub still shows 7 unused ports, and one Unknown device.

The change in software that seems to have caused this was installing the MSN portal and Mcaffee (I know mcaffee is junk from previous experience, but it promised to help me lan my two pc's together). I really don't want to reinstall the OS, as I have not been able to properly back up (or restore) my data from previous restores. The OEM of XP wipes the disk and loses the restore points, so I have a book of backups I cannot restore.

Thanks for reading this far, I hope Ihave described the problem and someone has some ideas. Oh, it is an e-machine with XP that defines a virtual D: drive in Fat 32 and the rest NTFS. I want my programs from the '98 machine, and it has a great box with lots of slots. Maybe I can take both machines, and get the new motherboard on the old machine and just buy a real XP disk so that my Office 2000 will still work.

Thanks a bunch!

"Restore an environmentally sustainable and economically just America"

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I'm a little confused What "drivers" do they want you to buy and who are "they"
Mark

You upgraded from Nero's site correct? I've read that there was a spoofed site screwing things up.

Edited by garmanma, 05 July 2007 - 04:38 PM.

Markwhy won't my laptop work?

Having grandkids is God's way of giving you a 2nd chance because you were too busy working your butt off the 1st time aroundDo not send me PMs with problems that should be posted in the forums. Keep it in the forums, so everyone benefitsBecome a BleepingComputer fan: Facebook and Twitter

Thanks for replying. Yes, I am referring to the Nero site as "they" and "those". I didn't know Nero got hijacked... Bummer! What was my firewall and Webroot and One Care doing???

"Nero" offered an upgrade to my OEM ver 6, and I took it. Then there were all kinds of requirements for $29.95 drivers. I did get one good run when I disconnected from the Internet, uninstalled and reinstalled my original versions. Not sure if I used CCleaner, and on the third disk, Nero stopped performing. It messed up the formats of a few of my DVD+RW disks, too. I cannot get them re-formatted.

Do you know of any software that will
1. Restore DVDs written with my writer, where the first partition got hosed by Norton? I found "Badfile" and it did convert the files that Nero can no longer recognize, and I saved it to my machine, but they want me to buy Badfile. I forgot the DVD was in the drive when I ran a scan, and it ruined my backup.
2. Format DVDs to keep them formatted for my DVD recorder/players?
3. Convert files from .wma to whatever so my ancient cd players will recognize them? I managed to create a DVD with music, but it won't play.
4. whatever other cool stuff there is I forgot about? My daughter snatched my MPG (what? those new music computers), so I have no use for those files right now, and my car isn't tooled anyway.

Thanks much, I really appreciate your reading that blurb. I have stacks of DVDs that need to be processed. And my J: drive is still MIA. It's strange that the flash drive would get a K: assignment. Like the PC knows J: is supposed to be there but just won't let me play!

Thanks again,
Joy

"Restore an environmentally sustainable and economically just America"

Don't know if this will help at all, Joygreen, but I had a similar problem a few days ago. My external USB backup drive R: disappeared from the system. I went through all the usual steps such as uninstalling the drive and rebooting etc, but it still wasn't there.
In the end I simply turned off the power to the HDD and when I turned it on again, Voila. All back to normal. AAARRRGGHH. Some things are just designed to drive you crazy LOL.

Drivers are for hardwareie supplied by the DVD player mfg. Here's a link to Deepburner. I haven't tried it but it is recommended in Bleeping's freeware thread. Give it a try. I'm positive there's something at sourceforge.net alsoMark

Markwhy won't my laptop work?

Having grandkids is God's way of giving you a 2nd chance because you were too busy working your butt off the 1st time aroundDo not send me PMs with problems that should be posted in the forums. Keep it in the forums, so everyone benefitsBecome a BleepingComputer fan: Facebook and Twitter

Thanks for the info! I do turn the machine off every night (sometimes stays off for days), so I think I have tried that suggestion?

I do have the install disk for the dvd burner, but since it is not recognized, the disk won't run there and I do not want to mess up the internal CDW/DVD. I think I had the settings for J: disabled for starting immediately upon inserting a disk.

I did just find a disk for "High Speed USB 2.0 PCI Card" which also says "FS-MEG-ALI-V1.0". I have another PC that I've had built and rebuilt over the years and it is still running under win 98, and the disk is probably from some iteration of USB ports there. I kept its software filed with box labels, but don't remember where this disk came from.

Would running such a USB disk on the working drive make the XP system look for hardware? I also have an icon to "safely remove hardware". Does that give y'all any ideas?

Would it be okay to run the LG disk (including Nero 6 OEM) that came with "J:" in my internal drive E: and not mess up E:'s settings?

Thank you

"Restore an environmentally sustainable and economically just America"